The Lost Mitten Fence

Every winter, the wooden fence outside the elementary school on our street turns into a gallery of lost mittens. Whoever finds one hangs it on a fence post, so its owner can find it on the way home.

This year someone added a little hand-painted sign: "Mitten Lost & Found. Take yours. Leave a smile." By February there were more than forty mittens and gloves, plus a single fuzzy earmuff and one very small pink boot.

I walk my dog past it every morning, and I've watched the reunions. A boy shouting "My dinosaur glove!" A grandmother holding up a tiny striped mitten and laughing. A teenager quietly taking a pair of plain black gloves when there was clearly no owner, because he'd forgotten his own.

It's such a small, unofficial kindness. Nobody runs it. Everybody keeps it going. I think that's my favorite kind of community.